Monday, December 03, 2007

It's Hanukkah/Chanuka/however you spell it in English/ time again. The Jewish Book Mall now has a sister site for toys of all kinds, Toys and Reviews. If you're looking for a holiday gift for the kiddies, give it a try.

Monday, May 14, 2007

Few in the Western world are aware of the story: in a day and a half in May, 1991, Israel airlifted 14,310 black Jews from Ethiopia to safety in the Jewish state.

Stephen Spector has written a thoughtful account of this rescue, titled Operation Solomon: The Daring Rescue of the Ethiopian Jews (Oxford, 2005) with in-depth analysis of all the people and organizations involved. It's now available in both hard and soft covers, and should be required reading for anyone who has ever heard (false) charges of racism thrown at Israel and Zionism. Really, how many countries would have done the same?

Thursday, May 03, 2007

Not long ago, we had the pleasure of attending a benefit concert for the people of Darfur. One of the two acts perfroming was the delightful Divahn, a musical mix of Persian and other Middle Eastern Jewish rhythms with...believe it or not, instruments that include a banjo.

The vocals are powerful. The instrumentation is cool. You never heard Dror Yikra at double time before? Give Divahn a listen.

Friday, April 27, 2007

It's far from the best selling Jewish book at Amazon...but if you search for "jewish", it's the first result. One reviewer says anti-Semites should read it. But we wonder if they'd get the joke. Yes, it's a humor book.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

From a JTS press release:Dr. Beth Berkowitz, Assistant Professor of Talmud and Rabbinics at The Jewish Theological Seminary, has been awarded the 2006 Baron Book Prize for her book Execution and Invention: Death Penalty Discourse in Early Rabbinic and Christian Cultures (Oxford University Press 2006).

Presented by the American Academy for Jewish Research, the Baron Book Prize recognizes the author of an outstanding first book in Jewish studies that makes a significant contribution to the field. All winners must have received their doctorates within the past seven years.

Execution and Invention argues that the ancient Rabbis augment their own authority through their laws of capital punishment. This argument runs counter to the commonly held position that the Rabbis opposed capital punishment and did everything they could to abolish it.

Dr. Berkowitz specializes in rabbinic literature, Judaism and Christianity in late antiquity, ritual studies, theories and methods in the study of religion, and cultural criticism. Dr. Berkowitz received a bachelor of arts, master of philosophy, and doctorate in religious studies from Columbia University. In addition, she holds a master of arts from University of Chicago Divinity School. She was a post-doctoral fellow in the Program of Judaic Studies in the Religious Studies Department at Yale University from 2001 to 2003. Dr. Berkowitz has taught at Columbia University and Yale University. Currently, she is working on a book titled Anxieties of Identity in Jewish Reading: Leviticus 18:3 and the Laws of the Gentiles.

Nothing earthshaking, but it had been several years since we'd updated the look of the Jewish Book Mall site. How many? Well, it hadn't actually changed much since we got on the web in 2002.

Sure, the contents change all the time. But we decided the yellowish parchment look was getting tired. Now there's a plain white background and a somewhat more modern-looking font.

Comments welcome. We won't be offended if you tell us we're wearing a plaid jacket over a striped shirt. The Jewish Book Mall recognizes that it must pay some semblance of homage to design taste. It's just that we'd rather focus on Jewish books.

Nothing earthshaking, but it had been several years since we'd updated the look of the Jewish Book Mall site. How many? Well, it hadn't actually changed much since we got on the web in 2002.

Sure, the contents change all the time. But we decided the yellowish parchment look was getting tired. Now there's a plain white background and a somewhat more modern-looking font.

Comments welcome. We won't be offended if you tell us we're wearing a plaid jacket over a striped shirt. The Jewish Book Mall recognizes that it must pay some semblance of homage to design taste. It's just that we'd rather focus on Jewish books.

Sunday, April 02, 2006

Torah fans, there is now a wonderful (partial) edition of Mikraot Gedolot - in English! The first volume, The Commentator's Bible: The JPS Miqra'ot Gedolot: Exodus has been published by the Jewish Publication Society, and now you can find Rashi, Ramban, Ibn Ezra, and the other commentators speaking, as it were, colloquial English. And yes, it is colloquial, not literal. Translator Michael Carasik purposely renders the medieval Torah scholars as if they were speaking modern American English, and they relate in their commentaries to the Torah text as translated by JPS. What an idea - to render authors who lived centuries ago so as to make them sensible to readers today.

A pleasure to read, and a wonderful tool for English readers to listen in on the conversations among the commentators across the centuries, all relating to the same text, and to each other. Official Jewish Book Mall rating: 5 out of 5 stars. Add this one to your Judaica library!

Monday, November 28, 2005

Imagine: a web hosting service just for shuls! If your temple web site is something like 50 years out-of-date, try ShulHost, where all you have to do is email your updates to them, and they do the rest.

Saturday, November 05, 2005

Where can you go to get always up-to-date Jewish and Israeli news from Jewish sources? Jewish Feeds, of course. Everything from kosher sex to mergers of Israeli companies. Hmm...is there a connection? :)

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

You know, if you ever thought that Jewish books were old and stuffy and musty - and let us humbly point out that you would have been wrong in any case - have a look at some of the great books coming from Jewish Lights Publishing. Where else, but at the Jewish Book Mall page devoted to books from Jewish Lights?

Sunday, August 21, 2005

While it may seem that the Jewish holidays are "late" this year - actually, Rosh Hashanah is always right on time, on the first of Tishrei (though sometimes September can come early or late) - there is more to preparing for the new year than showing up to shul at the appointed time. Rabbi Alan Lew guides you on a spiritual journey starting with the month of Elul, going through the days of awe as part of the penitential season in Judaism.

Sunday, August 14, 2005

Have you seen the Jewish Book Mall Jewish Music page? See Jewish Book Mall - Jewish and Israeli Music - CDs, tapes for albums by close to 300 different musicians, and almost 900 different Jewish CDs, from klezmer to Israeli to Yiddish to cantorial to Yemenite, with a little kosher reggae and other interesting concoctions thrown in to boot.

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

We've changed the format of the Jewish News Archive to make it a bit easier to read. Each weekday, the top Jewish and Israeli news stories of the day from JTA go into our archive. You can use it to stay current or to look up old news.

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Well, with our busy duties tending the Jewish Book Mall, we don't often have time to write reviews of individual books ourselves. Of course, we include reviews from readers like you on all products where they're available, but that's a different story.

This book grabbed our attention, though. Rashi's Daughters, Book 1: Joheved by Maggie Anton is a lovely book, and of course it's only the first of a series. You become very quickly transported to medieval France, where you join the family of Rashi, the most famous exegete of the HebrewBible and Talmud to this day, 1000 years later. You can see the family around the dinner - or disner - table.

If you want to get a sense of what the life of Rashi and his daughters was like, this is the book. The author says she spent a decade researching it, and we believe it. Certainly with regard to the details of French life then, and also with regard to Jewish life in France, Anton has done her job. She also does a very creditable job with regard to some of Rashi's work, quoting from his known responsa on kosher meat and, of course, wine.

No book is without its imperfections. The small ones we noted were misspelling of the Hebrew word for marriage, which should be nisuin, not niusin(which appears that way at least twice). And while we don't know if Rashi's daughters attended synagogue with him on weekdays, it would be a very different synagogue than what we know if the family would eat breakfast before going and then eat lunch upon returning - Saturday services, being the Sabbath, can last several hours, but weekday services are generally brief so as to allow congregants to arrive at work in a timely fashion.

Other books have been written about Rashi. This one is about his daughters, and of course this is clearly indicated by the title. So do not be surprised that the perspective is decidedly focused not on Rashi or his scholarship, but on Joheved, her sisters, and other female characters. There is sex, and childbirth, and midwifing, and love. True, there is also women engaging in business, agriculture, and Talmud study, alongside the male characters in the story. But this is definitely the book form of what you'd call a chick flick in the film business.

Tuesday, June 07, 2005

Not to be repetitive and redundant, or to say the same thing twice and then say it again, our fiduciary responsibilities as your Jewish book mavens would be unfulfilled if we didn't emphasize that, if you're thinking of buying anything from Artscroll, now is the time.

So, click here to see Artscroll Talmuds, and here to see other Artscroll seforim, or here to go straight to Artscroll. Nu, do it today.

Friday, June 03, 2005

Our Jewish Posters page has what we think may be one of the largest collections of Jewish and Israeli posters in one place. (We've gathered them from several different sources, each of which has some unique items.) You can find anything from Marc Chagall to old Zionist posters to one called Yiddish Cowboy and a Yiddish Eye Chart. Nope, we're not making this up...

Many are available not only as posters, but also as art prints and photos.

Tuesday, May 24, 2005

Friday, May 20, 2005

The Jewish Book Mall, in cooperation with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, proudly presents the Jewish News Archive. Jewish news headlines are updated daily, Monday through Friday, and each day's news is archived here as well.

Sunday, March 27, 2005

Especially now that the new daf yomi cycle of daily Talmud study has begun, there's a lot of interest in the Artscroll Talmud, aka the Schottenstein edition. It has a running translation and commentary similar to Steinsaltz, but with each Hebrew/Aramaic phrase also included before the translation. Nice for daf yomi, where you want to cover ground quickly but also want to feel like you're still doing the sugya not entirely in English.

Friday, March 18, 2005

Many delightful kosher cookbooks and books about keeping kosher here: Kosher Foods. You can find titles such as Kosher by Design, Let My People Eat (and other Passover cookbooks) How to Keep Kosher, and The Foods of Israel Today (we've got that at home, yum).

Announcing the regularly updated Jewish Bestsellers list: Jewish Bestsellers. These are the top 50 books of Jewish content at Amazon. Of course, you can also see way beyond the top 50 bestselling Jewish books. Peruse to your heart's desire...

Another helpful Talmud edition is Soncino, which has an English translation on the facing page with the Hebrew/Aramaic original. And the CD-ROM version allows you to open up windows for each, plus Rashi, and when you scroll in one, the others move along with you. Cool, eh? See our Soncino Talmud page: Soncino Talmud.

Friday, December 24, 2004

Hot off the presses, a first-ever anthology of writings in English on the tallit (tallis), called Enveloped in Light: A Tallit Sourcebook, by Rabbi Dov Peretz Elkins and Steven Schwarzman, isbn # 0918834260, $20 from Pomegranate Books.

It's got halakha (Jewish law), history of the tallit (including a modern-day detective story in tracking down an ancient snail for the special blue color called tekehelet, essays, poems, sermons, and stories by S.Y. Agnon, Yehuda Amichai, Israeli and American rabbis, and ordinary people with extraordinary stories about the tallit in their lives. Good bar/bat mitzvah gift, but also for grownups.

Sunday, August 08, 2004

There's a lot of klezmer music out there, and much of it is very sophisticated...too sophisticated for our tastes, actually. So it's a pleasure to tell you about Kol Haruach, which is every bit as talented musically as the others, but whose first CD, In the Beginning, is light, fun, and foot-tapping klezmer.